Kingfisher Airlines it has been suspended from the clearing house of the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association.

In a statement the airline said that as a result of a recent internal system failure, certain credits did not hit their IATA Clearing House (ICH) account in time, triggering an automatic suspension. “Kingfisher would like to confirm that all its dues via ICH have been settled in full and it has absolutely no upstanding dues as of date. We are closely working with ICH and expect to see a reversal of the automatic suspension shortly,” the statement adds as per a report in Businessline by Ashwini Phadnis.

Industry sources said that the suspension will make it difficult for other airlines to accept the tickets which have been issued by Kingfisher Airlines. Globally, passengers are transferred from one airline to another to reach their final destination and the airline pay each other a fixed amount of money for the passage.

The IATA Clearing House provides a competitive, seamless secure service providing an efficient on-time settling of interline accounts between the world's airlines, airline-associated companies and travel partners. The IATA Web site points out that each week more than 350 members and participants of its clearing house settle multi-million dollar transactions.

An inter-clearance agreement with the US-based Airlines Clearing House, allows for more than 450 airlines and participants to settle their accounts through this IATA service. Around 80 per cent of the annual multi-billion dollar interline transactions are settled through the netting process thus, requiring minimal movement of funds, assuring high credit and currency protection to its users.